For many of our community’s children and families, Salesian Boys & Girls Club of East Boston is a Beacon of Hope, a place where young people are free to explore, encouraged to learn, and kept safe from a world that too often places obstacles in their pathway to becoming good citizens and productive members of society.

You can help guarantee that this Beacon will continue to shine on them by supporting our largest fundraising event of the year, the Annual Community Breakfast hosted by Representative Carlo Basile, himself a proud alumnus of the Club. Like so many others, Basile credits the Club with playing a major role in his formative years while helping instill in him a strong sense of “giving back.” It is in this spirit of giving that we ask for your support.

As part of our network of generous benefactors, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that hundreds of children and teens will stand a little taller, feel more confident about themselves, and experience successes that will impact them for a lifetime. All because Salesian Boys & Girls Club is there for them, as it has been for over 60 years.

Please join us as we proudly present the Don Bosco Award to the late Walter "Wally" Bowe, a true hero of the Boys & Girls Club and the entire East Boston community.

For more information, contact Fr. John Nazzaro at 617‐567‐6626 Event Sponsor or e‐mail Ed Hoell, ehoell -- at -- bgcb.org

Monday, May 10, 2010

Former East Boston resident Brian Winston McCarthy, who now resides in San Diego, remembers his days checking out books at the Orient Heights library. He recalls the small branch library as the the place that introduced him to the joys of literature and a life of the mind. Recently, McCarthy dropped us a note at eastboston.com:

The closing of the Orient Heights Library saddens me. It was in its stacks that I found that reading could be fun. I came across a series of novels (by an author whose name I've long forgotten) which told sea story adventures for young boys. Each book was taken home (739 Bennington) and read faster than the ink could dry on the librarian's stamp showing return date. And this would lead to Yeats, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Joseph Conrad, to name a few.
The memories are rich. And thanx to all those nameless library workers, whose work and positive attitudes, made a young boy's reading experiences joyous.
Brian Winston McCarthy
San Diego

It's a shame that the Mayor is closing a branch library in East Boston. Soon, after all the deliberations, no one will be able to borrow books from the stacks in Orient Heights. But the memories will remain -- all the way to San Diego.